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Online health communities (OHCs) can be complementary to healthcare systems to improve the health behaviors of older adults with chronic diseases. This study aims to examine the impacts of habit and social support receipt on older adults' continued participation in OHCs. Particularly, the authors discussed the influences of social support received in two ways: social support received by initiating threads (direct social support receipt) and social support received by being exposed to the threads initiated by others (indirect social support receipt).

Based on the dual-process model (i.e. conscious process and unconscious process), the authors developed the research model. Data from one of the biggest online diabetes communities in Europe were collected. Besides, we used the support vector machine algorithm for social support classification and used the Cox proportion hazards model for model validation.

Older adults' continued participation is influenced by habit and indirect informational support. Habit moderates the relationship between direct informational support receipt and older adults' continued participation. Furthermore, direct and indirect emotional support receipt are both not associated with older adults' continued participation, regardless of their habit strength.

This is the first study investigating older adults' continued participation in OHCs based on the dual-process model. The findings of this study reveal that older adults' continued participation is determined by both the habit and specific conscious evaluation of benefits based on the social support receipt.

In this paper, the authors aim to assess whether immigrants are more likely to receive welfare payments relative to natives across a range of European countries. They also seek to examine relative rates of poverty across immigrants and natives.

The authors use data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions for 2007. They present descriptive statistics and results from probit regressions.

The authors find very little evidence that immigrants are more likely to receive welfare payments when all payments are considered together. This is true whether they use descriptive analysis or regression analysis in which they control for relevant characteristics such as age, gender and education. They do find evidence of higher rates of poverty among immigrants.

As the data used do not give an indication of the length of time an immigrant has been in a destination country, the authors are unable to assess whether their observed patterns change with length of stay.

The results run counter to what seems to be a popular perception, namely, that immigrants are intensive users of welfare. Hence, attitudes may be altered.

While other papers may have considered this issue, to the authors’ knowledge, none have linked the poverty and welfare analyses. The findings raise the possibility that welfare systems are failing to keep immigrants out of poverty and this is important in the context of the inclusion agenda.

One objective of the present study was to explore how stressful kindergarten principals, as leaders and managers of their schools, found their work to be, and if such job‐related stress was associated with negative emotions and job (dis)satisfaction. Another objective was to assess whether or not social support from one's supervisor could reduce the adverse effects of job‐related stress. A related objective was to examine possible negative impacts associated with receipt of support from one's supervisor.

A total of 44 kindergarten principals in Macau filled out a questionnaire that contained the variables of interest.

The results indicated that the principals found their work to be moderately stressful; only emotional support was shown to be effective in buffering the impacts of job‐related stress; and there were only weak adverse effects related to the receipt of support.

This paper is useful in understanding the relationship of stress to work in the school environment.

Social support is a significant factor in the life of homeless people, as it helps them meet their life challenges more efficiently and increases the likelihood of return to a normal life. Social support plays a different role in homeless women’s life, as gender culture often causes them to be exposed to more risks. The purpose of this paper is to identify homeless people’s access to social support from their network members, with a comparison between men and women.

In this study, a survey method was used with an administrated questionnaire. Participants were recruited from among the homeless people (men and women) who used the municipal social services in shelters and social service centers in Tehran. The main variables in this study included frequency of contact, social support, and gender.

The results have shown significant differences between homeless men and homeless women in terms of frequency of contact and receipt of social support. Homeless women contacted their network members more often than did homeless men and also received more support. There seems to be a strong correlation between the receipt of social support and women’s greater ability for social communication, as well as with traditional culture, which considers women to be weak and dependent so that they receive more support compared with men. The weakness of social support, especially among homeless men, requires serious attention; however, homeless women are not in a favorable situation either.

The social networks of homeless people who usually live on the streets and in public places without permanent shelter are weak because of various reasons, including poverty, addiction, immigration, and divorce. The weakness of social support leads to an escalation of their vulnerabilities. Thus, it is necessary, in social policy and services, to improve the social network of high-risk people such as homeless people, which would help the rehabilitation process and reduce the probability of exposure to harm.

Aims primarily to examine how stressful kindergarten principals as leaders and managers of their schools found their work to be, and if such job stress was related to negative emotions and job satisfaction. The secondary aim was to explore if social support from a close friend could reduce and buffer job stress. Seventy‐seven kindergarten principals in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire containing the variables of interest. The results showed that the principals found their work to be moderately stressful. However, emotional and informational support from a close friend had beneficial impacts on stress.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the structural relationship between the emotional and social support provided for individuals with caring responsibilities for elderly relatives, and the quality of care actually delivered. In addition, the moderating role of gender is explored.

A quantitative research design was utilised in which 200 usable questionnaires were collected from 250 respondents comprised of young adults who adopt a caregiving roles in respect of elderly parents or other close elderly relatives. The structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was selected for data analysis, and the Analysis of moment structure software version 21 was used.

The SEM results revealed that emotional support for caregivers was the most important predictor affecting the intergenerational care of multi-ethnic elderly people. Additionally, a moderation analysis revealed that the relative influence in this connection was more pronounced among female caregivers. An increase in the emotional support received by the recipient was found to enhance the level of the relationship, and to result in closer intergenerational ties in the care of the multi-ethnic elderly. Furthermore, the receipt of social support positively influences the judgement of an individual, and expands that person’s social network, which can subsequently have a favourable impact on the way in which one fulfils their caring role. The significant effect of social support provided for intergenerational caregivers in the context of the multi-ethnic elderly was higher in the group of male caregivers than in the group of female caregivers.

This study sends a strong message to policy-makers in developing countries about the need to consider within their National Policy for the Elderly, improvements in the national action plan for a holistic and integrated approach to ensure the well-being of caregivers and the elderly.

The results of the study help young adults to understand the importance of emotional and social support in boosting their relationships with parents and families and motivating intergenerational efforts in the care of the multi-ethnic elderly. Harmony within families is an important ideal in any circumstance, but in the scenario of ageing family members it may be even more essential to try to achieve it.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate which types of service employees provide their customers with social support and to understand why they do so.

The article employs a network‐based inventory method to evaluate a customer's commercial‐based social support network and grounded theory to develop a framework illustrating the interdependence between service providers and their customers regarding the exchange of intrinsic support and extrinsic financial incentives and gifts.

Indirect service employees who do not directly receive tips from customers emerge as key providers of social support. Also, commercial friendships are not marketplace niceties. Service providers and customers engage in a mutually beneficial exchange of social support, gifts, and tips under the guise of commercial friendships.

The article is based upon service provider and customer relationships in an American diner. Researchers may want to apply the offered model to other contexts and locals. Also, researchers may want to reconsider the idea that service providers willingly provide social support to their customers.

The hiring and training of service employees, such as cashiers, hostesses, and “bus boys,” should be taken into consideration as they may be key providers of social support. Service providers should realize the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits or providing support.

The paper empirically investigates the role of indirect service employees in providing customers with social support. Also, it demonstrates that commercial friendships are mutually beneficial relationships where service providers and customers realize extrinsic and/or intrinsic benefits from these relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to identify key developmental relationships for career‐spanning success and to examine relational models and support expectations associated with these relationships. The paper creates propositions associating developer‐protégé schema congruence and incongruence to relevant outcome variables.

Study 1 employed qualitative coding of developers identified in 77 hall of famer induction speeches and Study 2 used a cross‐industry survey of 425 respondents to assess the relational model and support expectations associated with the seven most highly‐cited developer roles from Study 1.

Study 1 identified these highly‐cited developer roles as a CEO, manager, work teammate, friend, spouse, parent, and unmet hero/idol. Study 2 described the expected relational models associated with these roles and found significant differences in the relational model and support expectations associated across roles.

While study 1 focused on a primarily male sample using retrospective data, it generalized and extended previous research on key developer roles for extraordinary career achievement. Based on the key findings from study 1, study 2 surveyed respondents regarding developer role expectations rather than expectations of particular developer‐protégé relationships.

These findings identify how and with whom protégés should consider initiating and fostering key developmental relationships to enhance their networks while broadening and deepening organizations' understanding of the importance of their members having a variety of organizational and non‐organizational developers.

These findings challenge the notion that developer‐protégé relationships fit a “one size fits all” reciprocal exchange motif as it is the first study to explore expectations associated with key developer relationships using relational models theory.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize a dyadic theoretical model which takes social-oriented and individual-initiative drivers into account and illustrates a mechanism between social commerce intention and its antecedents in the hospitality industry. To understand tourist social commerce behaviors, the current study puts forward a comprehensive model and investigates the impact among social support, social capital, participant involvement and social identification on tourist propensity to engage in social commerce with behaviors such as to like, share, post reviews and make purchases.

The current research draws on social exchange theory and social penetration theory to study how social-oriented drivers (i.e., social support and social capital) and individual-initiated drivers (i.e., participant involvement and social identification) could better explain tourists’ social commerce intentions. Structural equation modeling was performed based on a sample of 569 hotel guests from 61 hotels in Macau.

Results reveal that social capital mediates the relationship between social support and social commerce behavioral intention. This chain of relationship is moderated by social identification in that the more a hotel guest identifies himself/herself as an in-group member of an online community, the more likely he/she would engage in social commerce behaviors.

The diffusion velocity of marketing effect is manifested through customers’ social commerce intentions and behaviors, which helps managers to identify the importance in maintaining a supportive atmosphere to nurture intimate member-to-member and member-to-provider relationships.

The present study enriches the social penetration theory and social exchange theory by showing how both individual and social perspectives could jointly influence hotel guest propensity to post likes and comments and to reserve hotel rooms, as means to build more intimate relationships with the members within a virtual community.

There is a popular perception that particular ethnic groups have a stronger sense of filial responsibility than is found in Western European societies, which has led to a belief that formal services are not required by minority groups. However, it has been suggested that some minority ethnic older people are actually in greater need of support, because of factors such as poorer health and lower socio‐economic status, than the white majority in Britain. Employing data from the 2005 Home Office Citizenship Survey, ethnic group differences in help given to family members are examined. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, there was only one ethnic group difference; black Caribbean older people had significantly lower odds than white British people of supporting members of their household. Support was equally likely among all other minority groups and the white British group, providing nationally representative evidence for an idea only previously speculated upon.